The invention relates to an apparatus or units for processing or working layer material or the like, particularly substrate materials. Such sheet-like materials can be made from paper, plastics, etc. and are of relatively high flexibility, so that they can be folded without breaking or can be closely curved or bent with a radius of a few millimetres without permanent deformation. The material can be supplied as a web from a storage means, e.g. in reel and/or folding layer form and in one or more working stations can successively undergo different treatments or workings in continuous manner, e.g. in such a way that at the end individual, separate sheet layers are obtained, which can in turn be combined in multilayer form. In the case of a multilayer the individual layers despite different workings can pass through jointly or approximately congruently the said apparatus. The layer material can also be supplied in the form of individual sheet layers or blanks or as a strand of sheet layers to the apparatus.
With in each case one or more separate working units e.g. there can be a web edge alignment, a web advance, a longitudinal or transverse processing, such as cutting, perforating, grooving, crimping, gluing, printing, embossing, contour cutting or punching and the like. In addition, prefabricated or also continuously separately produced product parts such as inspection window foils, longitudinal strips, etc. can be brought together with the layer material. Sheet layers or web portions can also be brought together, e.g. scaled in mutually overlapping manner or can be placed approximately flush on one another to form multiple sets or finished articles or products can be placed in a pack and consequently packed. For said treatments usually driven tools are required, but it is also possible to provide working stations in which treatment requires no tool drive, but instead merely the conveying movement of the layer material, which is e.g. the case with folding, combining, deflecting or turning.
In the case of such apparatuses or production lines there is a need for a building block or modular construction, in that on an apparatus bed or on a base standing on the foundation floor, as a function of the work to be carried out, are successively arranged the appropriate working units in the desired number and then the layer material can pass through at roughly the same height along a common conveyor. For changes to the workings random working units are to be interchangeable or replaceable by other units and the number of working units present or the length of the apparatus is to be variable. As the working units and optionally conveying means are mostly driven in reciprocal dependence or jointly, the associated driving or control means must be correspondingly modifiable. This applies to the working units through which pass the layer material and also the base frame through which the layer material does not pass or only does so for supply removal, deflection or similar purposes and which mainly determines the positionally fixed association of the working units and their spacings, as well as containing driving and control means.